Dear Marion,

Your letter arrived as I was thinking about you with some
gratitude for your sympathy with Margrit. I myself don't need 
sympathy, and your criticism of my use of a neuropathological
metaphor "moth-eaten" makes me feel much at home, because my
father consistently took umbrage at the directness of my
descriptions. This directness in turn was my reaction to
the atmosphere of my childhood, when my parents considered
any comment that was not explicitly laudatory to constitute
betrayal. I remember vividly the tempest that I precipitated
on an occasion when I tried to explain to my mother that I
thought her suspicions of the neighbors were paranoid. I have
already told you about my fathers' holding it against me 
that I once said I wasn't going to be a rich doctor with
an empty head, he thought I was disparaging him, although
he was neither rich nor empty-headed. He held it against
me when I said, - not referring at all to him, but as a
general statement, that physicians prescribed bed rest
for their patients when they had nothing else to offer and
wished to assert their authority and power. I'm sure that
the moth-eaten metaphor would also have offended him, although
wearing my hat as a neuro-pathologist I consider it not at
all pejorative, but a useful and relatively accurate analogy
for the lacunae which have presumably developed in the tissues
on which memory depends, perhaps in consequence of microinfarcts.
As a practical matter, when we were in Konnarock together two
months ago, I installed a very accessible and prominent toggle
switch to make it easy for her to disable the telephone answering
device that I use for remote control of the surveillance computer,
but even though it was there under her nose and I had given her
written instructions for its use, Margrit forgot and left it
untouched.  Not only does Margrit not remember that she flew
to Boston to attend Nathaniel's high school graduation last June,
but repeated reminders by Margaret don't seem to register:
Margrit keeps asking the same question over and over again.
The issue of whether she knows what she is going "back" to
is obviously of great practical significance, - because although
in Konnarock there are a few individuals whom I can rouse to look
after her, in the Detroit high rise building in which she has rented
an apartment, she is, so far as I can tell, totally on her own,
with no one even to get groceries for her if she should be unable
to go out herself, and there is certainly no one there who would
dress her abdominal wound. If she were in Detroit, she would need
to be in a nursing home for the forseeable future. 

As an inducement for her to come to Boston when she was so
dangerously ill, I promised Margrit that I would drive her to
Konnarock whenever she wanted to go. She hasn't mentioned,
and I certainly haven't raised the issue. As of now, the
surgeons don't want her to lift more than ten pounds, and
they tell her not to drive. I'm not sure she was able to
drive safely before her hernia incarcerated; her car was badly
damaged in an accident when she said she was driving slowly
but "a deer ran into the car." Whether she will be able to
drive safely once her abdominal wound heals, I don't know.
Who has the burden of proof? If I keep my promise and drive
her to Konnarock in the middle of winter, what will happen
then? It takes her days to pack. Will Margaret and I stay
and help her and stuff the many belongings that she takes
with her in the trunk, behind the drivers' seat so it no
longer reclines, in the passenger's seat next to her,
obstructing at minimum the right rearview mirror? - and
then send her to make her accustomed rounds to multiple
"friends" in North Carolina before turning around to go
back to Detroit - in the middle of winter? Will Margaret
and I stay in Konnarock for days on end until it becomes
apparent that Margrit is unable to manage by herself, or
will we head back to Massachusetts and leave Margrit in
Konnarock to fend for herself?

What I wish you would to for me, - if you can do so in good
conscience - is to join me in the assumption that she has
come to Belmont to stay, and that you avoid suggestive questions
such as "How long are you going to stay in Belmont?" or
"When do you think you will be able to leave?" I hope that
she will forget about going back to Detroit. If she doesn't
I may be faced with a catastrophe with which I can't cope.

I've launched into the 39th chapter of Die Freunde, and as
usual, I very much enjoy spinning out the story and caressing
the words. When the texts lie around for a long time without
any attention, I resign myself to the assumption that what I've
written really isn't very good; but I must confess that when
this morning, for the first time in many years, I reread the
11th chapter of Die Andere, I was thrilled. Lessing got it right:
Ein jeder liebt sich selbst am meisten. There's no use trying
to deny it.

Nonetheless, I can't emphasize too strongly that I don't
expect you to read what I have put out on the Internet for
a public that never materialized. As a matter of fact, I'm
not even offended if you don't bother to read the lengthy
epistolary salvos that I regularly fire off in your direction,
but I'm pleased when you do.

Jochen